Eggblogg

There goes the neighbourhood

The other day I mentioned Twitter in a meeting with some journo/publishing types, and they'd never heard of it. I marvelled at that. I may not be a hard-core Tweeter, but I love the fact that I'm experiencing it at a time when it's still not mainstream.

Twitter still inhabits a relatively innocent space; it hasn't yet been completely ruined by The Bad Guys or overtaken by the heaving masses. It's a natural home for thinkers, experimentalists and wits.  But last week the Guardian ran a piece which makes me fear for the future of Twitter. Not that the article was negative, far from it, but coverage in a national newspaper is one more step towards its demise. I'm sorry, but I am unapologetically a Twitter snob. I know that as soon as Twitter is mainstream, the thing that makes it such a joy will be gone. As will all those thoughtful, interesting people who currently use it.

As Deborah Schultz put it, social interactions minus intelligence equals noise. And the world is noisy enough.

eTips - we've got the visitors, now where are the sales?

Today's eTips is about spending just a small amount on testing usability and customer experience in order to gain a big return.

Things I've been learning recently

Asia leads the way in social media usage, with the exception of Japan...

Why widgets don't work ... and the counter-argument ...

Chris Brogan's tips for getting started in social media ...

And food for thought (thanks to Deb Schultz for flagging this up) - Grant McCracken's excellent post on 'just enough' and what it means to small scale entrepreneurs ( I can relate!)

It's search, Jim, but not as we know it

For some time now I've been aware that I never pick up the Yellow Pages. I've never advertised my business in it and I certainly don't use it. I always search the web - and I've heard the same thing from many other people.

But I was surprised to read on Robin Hamman's CyberSoc blog that he never uses Google, or any kind of web search, preferring to ask his contacts via Twitter, Facebook and social bookmarking sites. Is this the next step? Will search ever become as defunct at the Yellow Pages? I can't imagine it happening any time soon, but then again I suppose it's possible, if the social networking phenonemon ever achieves a critical mass.

But what if your friends don't know the answer, nor where to find it? It could be the blind leading the blind. It reminds me of the idea that in the future there will be no 'mass media', that we'll all read our own 'bespoke' newspapers, full of content we've elected to receive and nothing else. Customised, personalised, targeted. Although that sounds good from a marketing standpoint, it leaves me feeling a bit depressed if that's the way  all communication is going. No more serendipitous discoveries of things we previously knew nothing about, nothing to challenge our prejudices or ignorance.

Personally I think search is inherent to the web - whether it's using a search engine, searching within a site, searching for likeminds on Twitter, whatever ... we still haven't found what we're looking for.

Why HTML email is soooo 20th century

Don't get me wrong, I believe in HTML email. Email marketing is a big part of my livelihood. But sometimes I despair of ever finding someone who can quickly, easily and happily create HTML emails that render in the majority of email clients.

Why's that? Because it ain't clever, it ain't sexy and it's certainly not cutting edge. In techie terms, you need to know how to (horror!) hand code good old basic HTML using tables and inline styles. While web design has moved forward over the years, email design has been forced to stay in the 1999 doldrums. Kids just don't learn that tables stuff any more.

But unlike me (who just moans about it and secretly enjoys the challenge of all those nested tables) some people are actually campaigning for positive change - The Email Standards Project is all about persuading email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email. There's a 'name and shame' list on their site which flags up the biggest offenders.

Latest news is that they've got an 'in' with a kind Google developer who's going to look into the way that Gmail renders its HTML emails. They got Google's attention with a mass gurning appeal. Nice one - let's all refuse to grin and bear it!